Liav said:The question/s I want to ask is/are simple.
What positive element is added to the game by requiring you to run your alt to a group rather than use a caravan system? Why was this really stupid, inflammatory title chosen for this thread?
Umbra said:Liav said:The question/s I want to ask is/are simple.
What positive element is added to the game by requiring you to run your alt to a group rather than use a caravan system? Why was this really stupid, inflammatory title chosen for this thread?
1/ Immersion. Magically swapping a dead character out for another breaks immersion - utterly.2/ Group diversity. Groups have to put thought into their makeup and not just 'go ahead without a healer because we can caravan one in if needed'.3/ Characters become 'real'. A rogue has to adventure with a group, gets to know that group, gets good at their craft - rather than caravanning one in to pick that door with no key.Your turn. What positive element does caravaning offer the game other than simple convenience?
What positive element do caravans offer? The exact thing they were created for. It is immensely frustrating and disheartening to play a game where the only way to progress is to hope the stars align, and that you will end up with an optimal or even acceptable group to operate within the content.
Now, no idiot is going to bring 6 Bards to a group and reasonably hope to be able to progress. However, I've played dozens of MMOs over the course of 17 years and it is a very common problem to not be able to find a tank or a healer to do something, and you end up having to call it off or simply log out due to irritation over the fact that you can't really do anything.
I suppose when you get down to it, it is actually just about convenience. However I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily, because I've experienced numerous situations where a feature like this may have been able to save a group instead of requiring us to leave. If COTH is going to be in the game, why not just remove it and opt for a system like this instead? Or at least offer it to a wider variety of classes. I don't recall it harming Vanguard at all that every healer class was able to summon group mates to them within a dungeon.
So if you don't care about character immersion (as vague as that term is), would you prefer a style of game where you just click a number for the dungeon you wanted to be in? No travel needed. No danger - just magically arrive in the dungeon. In fact, it might be incredibly frustrating not being able to beat the end boss. May as well include another button that auto-kills boss mobs. Much more convenient!
Now having to actually make friends/acquaintances online - that is really annoying - especially if they don't have the right characters for you to magically port to dungeons with for you to auto-kill the boss mob. Better make a system where NPCs play with you if needed (I'm looking at you GW1). No need for diversity. Much more convenient!
No need to actually identify with a character or even have to understand the skills of the class either. Since we have an auto-kill button that makes us awesome! Just to make things more convenient, better start the character out at max level also.
All convenient things for those that could care less about immersion! Luckily that's not anything to base an argument on though.
Yeah man, clearly making concessions to travel to and form groups easier is perfectly equivalent to a button that automatically kills things for you. Well done.
That's how we did it in Vanguard. Our ability to summon group members in dungeons absolutely trivialized all of the content in the game. Those abilities completely unrelated to combat were absolutely pivotal in my guild's ability to kill the hardest raid content Vanguard had to offer.
Every time a Magician got invited to a group in EQ, suddenly all of the mobs just fell over dead instantly without any problems. Somehow having Call of the Hero available to us just completely destroyed any semblance of challenge we had as a group. I didn't need to do anything, we just had the Mage COTH someone and my character automatically leveled to endgame with the best raid gear available for the expansion.
Bravo.
Krixus said:Why is it that the people calling out the EQ vets don't seem to have any constructive responses to the points being made other than that we're knee jerk fanboys stuck in the past? Why don't you guys stop and think for a second about what made games like DAOC, AC, EQ, AO great and what the repercutions might be when introducing some of these more modern mechanics? The whole point of a game like PRF is that it is differenct from the cookie cutter, easy mode, non virtual world "mmo" of the last 15 years.
Krixus this isn't directed at you. I just want to try to answer your question, and provide feedback to other members of the forum.
I don't agree with many members on these forums, and honestly i've got a bit heated at times myself. But members on these forums need to state their opinion on the topic, and then allow others to make theirs. Stop argueing on the forums it's honestly not helping the community or the developers. We need to provide honest feedback for the developers with examples of how a system worked in a previous game, and how they could have improved on the system.
For example:
1. The Caravan system in Vanguard worked and helped you stay connected with a regular group of players. I used it for over 30 levels to stay in contact with a group of friends/guild members. The party was one of the best experiences I have from any game. It helped us stay within level range of each other mostly because if one of us logged online late they could come to us very quickly rather then taking an hour to show.
2. In the Caravan system you could only have X amount of people in it. The size was about a group. When you logged into the game you had the option at character select or right as you logged into game to choose to port to your group or not. If you ported to the group you didn't land exactly right next to them. I believe you ported someplace in the zone close to a safe border and had to run to the location of your Caravan.
3. Only the leader of the Caravan could invite players into the Caravan. So the only way to invite another character from the same account was to have the leader invite them. Could you invite two characters from the same account? Yes, it was possibly but really didn't provide any benifit at all other then moving to another zone. You would still have to run across a zone to get to the rest of the Caravan.
4. The system can be used to give you an advantage but it's very small and can be corrected if implemented correctly and tested. I honestly don't believe very many people used the system at all in Vanguard. I used it and it worked out great and gave me an amazing expierence. I however wouldn't have used the system at all if I didn't meet a great group of people. This type of system is AMAZING for people who group up with the same party every night. If you don't group up with the same players each night then you'll probably never use it at all.
5. I believe people are getting hung up on the ability to summon another character from the same account. I don't remember using this in Vanguard. I do remember adding my alts into a Caravan but it didn't provide me any advantage at all and I don't ever recall using it. I slightly recall that if you were in a Caravan with somebody you would split your XP with them. You leveled up very slowly if you were the only person online and was splitting your xp times however many members where in your Caravan. An example of how slowly would be like a hell level in EQ. The advantage of this system would be that you could remain within level range of you best friends. You would pay a very heavy fee of splitting your XP with people offline and it would cause you to fall well behind players who weren't in a Caravan if the other members of your Caravan never logged online. Could the system be used to level up alts on the same account yes. But at twice the amount of time and if the alt fell out of the level range of the Caravan you would have to log onto them and level them up the old fasioned way to get them within level range again. I don't recall everything but it was very painful to keep an alt in a Caravan and at the end it was WAY easier just to level them up as a separate alt character.
If tested well this system can work as attended. It's already been implemented by Brad in one of his previous games. Kilsin played that game pretty much from start to finish and knows about all the positives and negatives of the system. Have trust that if the system is implemented in this game that if it doens't work as intended that it'll be removed.
Gurt said:Krixus said:Why is it that the people calling out the EQ vets don't seem to have any constructive responses to the points being made other than that we're knee jerk fanboys stuck in the past? Why don't you guys stop and think for a second about what made games like DAOC, AC, EQ, AO great and what the repercutions might be when introducing some of these more modern mechanics? The whole point of a game like PRF is that it is differenct from the cookie cutter, easy mode, non virtual world "mmo" of the last 15 years.
Typically because several of those conversations go something like this:
FFXI Vet: I think it would be cool if *feature from FFXI* was in PRF, it was something I liked and games still use versions of it occasionally.
EQ Vet 1: That feature is part of the reason why modern MMOs are so bad because *reasons*
EQ Vet 2: I agree with EQ Vet 1, we need to stay pure to PRFs mission.
EQ Vet 3: PRF would be a worse game for including *feature*.
FFXI Vet: Some of *reasons* are valid, but I disagree with these *reasons* and think the root cause is *other issue*
EQ Vet 1: You're wrong this has been proven time and time again.
EQ Vet 4: I agree with the others, this is a terrible idea.
Anti-EQ Vet: You EQ Vets are all not nice people and really not nice and if you can't see that then you're also not nice. These *false reasons* are why this is a good feature and all EQ Vets are bad.
- This post has been editied by VG Vet.
VG Vet: Lets keep it civil and not use profanity. We are hard at work deciding what features to add and not add, but I'll remind everyone that PRF will be closer to VG and EQ than other games. PRF is a throwback to older MMOs.
This is exactly how I see and read things at times on these forums.
Liav said:Yeah man, clearly making concessions to travel to and form groups easier is perfectly equivalent to a button that automatically kills things for you. Well done.
...
Bravo.
Aradune 256 posts
April 26, 2016 6:41 PM BST
It would likely work with the Caravan System (similar to what was in VG). You can 'dock' multiple characters in the Caravan and they move with your group/guild, whether they are online or offline. When you log in with a character that is part of a Caravan you have the option of appearing where the group/guild logged off. In the case of a dungeon, you will appear at the entrance. If you logged off your Crusader and then logged in your Rogue, he/she would be at the entrance to the dungeon you guys are in and would have to be Call of Hero'd to where the rest of the group was at.
Please read what Brad said again please.
Not sure how do you see it as insta switching to a needed class any time anywhere... I dont see it much different from what I and many many players used to do in EQ, park your needed alt at zone in... For buff, rezz, manabuff or door picklock (have leveled mine just for City of Myst). And it seems people that are sceptical are the ones that didnt even used the system before (in VG) and presuming is a "wow-ish" feature based on their themepark mmos experience. Yet to see a negative reaction on caravans from VG player here and that great :)
Liav said:The question/s I want to ask is/are simple.
What positive element is added to the game by requiring you to run your alt to a group rather than use a caravan system? Why was this really stupid, inflammatory title chosen for this thread?
Why am I being accused of being "anti-EQ vet" when I myself have played EQ for as long or longer than most of the self-proclaimed EQ vets here? Maybe I just dislike the bias that the overwhelming majority of you bring to the table. =/
A major part of EQ was it's social challenges. Making friends, interacting with people, and being prepared was part of the challenge each time you logged on EQ. Nothing came easy, and as such, players had a deeper appreciation for one another and developed stronger bonds.
When you add systems that allow players to become more self-sufficient or more reliant on people they already know (caravans, mentoring), the value of the average player is diminished, the opportunities for interaction are reduced, and it decreases the scale of the community.
Just to note, those are facts. This is 101 stuff in the social sciences. Those facts may not change one's preference or opinion, but then their preference is for a game with less social challenges.
Lest my post be misinterpreted or misrepresented, this is not me saying we should have no tools to make the process of finding people easier. A LFG system is a good thing. It is a game after all so some convenience is necessary. Its striking the balance without damaging the social aspects of the game that is the challenge.
Dullahan said:A major part of EQ was it's social challenges. Making friends, interacting with people, and being prepared was part of the challenge each time you logged on EQ. Nothing came easy, and as such, players had a deeper appreciation for one another and developed stronger bonds.
When you add systems that allow players to become more self sufficient or more reliant on people they already know (caravans, mentoring), the value of the average player is diminished, the opportunities for interaction are reduced, and it decreases the scale of the community at large.
Just to note, those are facts. Those facts may not change one's preference or opinion, but then their preference is for a game with less social challenges.
flec said:Dullahan said:A major part of EQ was it's social challenges. Making friends, interacting with people, and being prepared was part of the challenge each time you logged on EQ. Nothing came easy, and as such, players had a deeper appreciation for one another and developed stronger bonds.
When you add systems that allow players to become more self sufficient or more reliant on people they already know (caravans, mentoring), the value of the average player is diminished, the opportunities for interaction are reduced, and it decreases the scale of the community at large.
Just to note, those are facts. Those facts may not change one's preference or opinion, but then their preference is for a game with less social challenges.
This is the reason discussions on this forum are difficult. You clearly feel that your post is full of facts, but I read it and see only opinions. Some of which I agree with and others not, but nothing I would put forward as a fact. To me "fact" is a pretty high bar and do not include subjective and unmeasurable qualifiers like "stronger bonds" and "diminished value of average player".
My opinon is that players developed strong bonds in EQ because they were working together to achieve challenging goals, not because of the "social challenges" caused by lack of features. Things like fast respawning dungeons that forced you to "crawl" through to get to your goal were a big part of why you wanted to form a strong group of trusted allies. So to me, the problem with LDoN instancing for instance, was more tha lack of respawn than the fact that it prevented other people/groups from interfering with you. But again, that is just an opinion and I am not putting it forward as fact.
If caravans work somewhat like fellowships I would be for them. "Fellowships" was one of my favorite features added to EQ1 and it helped me strengthen my bonds with my friends who were not in my guild. To me, what kills socialization is mechanics that prevent you from grouping with the same people again or even caring who is in your group at all (like in WoW heroics).
Using them to swap in alts easily would just a convenience factor and I have no strong opinion on that being allowed or prevented.
In EQ2 we had mentoring a sort of fast travel system (Still took some time to get to certain zones) ETC ETC and our guild had a tighter bond then I had in any other game. We were always on together hell we even went ona guild trip 20 something of us went to Irelend for a week and drank and partied. Thats as close as you can get really.
While some features for sure will dumb down a game and make it anti social others will have no affect on it. Mentoring I feel wouldnt. If you don;t want to use it don't. I feel Mentoring helped the communtiy of EQ2 a lot of max players would mentor down and help random groups level up for no other reason then to farm some polat or just for something to do. Hell in EQ2 there was a few spells like lvl 35 and 55 that never upgraded finding the master version of this spell could take years and gave a reason for people to mentor and help people at the same time they were hunting for the spell book.
If this game is indeed hard slow dungeon crawl you will never be in PUGS anyway you will stay within the guild for groups as its always been done.
Umbra said:So if you don't care about character immersion (as vague as that term is), would you prefer a style of game where you just click a number for the dungeon you wanted to be in? No travel needed. No danger - just magically arrive in the dungeon. In fact, it might be incredibly frustrating not being able to beat the end boss. May as well include another button that auto-kills boss mobs. Much more convenient!
Now having to actually make friends/acquaintances online - that is really annoying - especially if they don't have the right characters for you to magically port to dungeons with for you to auto-kill the boss mob. Better make a system where NPCs play with you if needed (I'm looking at you GW1). No need for diversity. Much more convenient!
No need to actually identify with a character or even have to understand the skills of the class either. Since we have an auto-kill button that makes us awesome! Just to make things more convenient, better start the character out at max level also.
All convenient things for those that could care less about immersion! Luckily that's not anything to base an argument on though.
Don't even bother with him.
flec said:Dullahan said:A major part of EQ was it's social challenges. Making friends, interacting with people, and being prepared was part of the challenge each time you logged on EQ. Nothing came easy, and as such, players had a deeper appreciation for one another and developed stronger bonds.
When you add systems that allow players to become more self sufficient or more reliant on people they already know (caravans, mentoring), the value of the average player is diminished, the opportunities for interaction are reduced, and it decreases the scale of the community at large.
Just to note, those are facts. Those facts may not change one's preference or opinion, but then their preference is for a game with less social challenges.
This is the reason discussions on this forum are difficult. You clearly feel that your post is full of facts, but I read it and see only opinions. Some of which I agree with and others not, but nothing I would put forward as a fact. To me "fact" is a pretty high bar and do not include subjective and unmeasurable qualifiers like "stronger bonds" and "diminished value of average player".
You see how you just relegated everything in my post to immeasureable qualifiers, despite the FACT that allowing players to become self-sufficient and reliant on previous affiliations will, ON SOME LEVEL, reduce the number of interactions and in a very tangible way (but yes, an immeasureable one), harm the capacity for broader community.
This is the reason discussion on this forum are difficult. You won't even acknowledge truth if you can dismiss it on account of some indeterminate detail.
Dullahan said:
You see how you just relegated everything in my post to immeasureable qualifiers, despite the FACT that allowing players to become self-sufficient and reliant on previous affiliations will, ON SOME LEVEL, reduce the number of interactions and in a very tangible way (but yes, an immeasureable one), harm the capacity for broader community.
This is the reason discussion on this forum are difficult. You won't even acknowledge truth if you can dismiss it on account of some indeterminate detail.
If implemented well a carravan system could provide similar benefits. Similarly, a well implemented mentoring system could make it easier to bring new people into the game, thus provinding a broader community and more interactions.
Liav said:Umbra said:Liav said:The question/s I want to ask is/are simple.
What positive element is added to the game by requiring you to run your alt to a group rather than use a caravan system? Why was this really stupid, inflammatory title chosen for this thread?
1/ Immersion. Magically swapping a dead character out for another breaks immersion - utterly.2/ Group diversity. Groups have to put thought into their makeup and not just 'go ahead without a healer because we can caravan one in if needed'.3/ Characters become 'real'. A rogue has to adventure with a group, gets to know that group, gets good at their craft - rather than caravanning one in to pick that door with no key.Your turn. What positive element does caravaning offer the game other than simple convenience?
- No. The word immersion is not an argument and is loosely defined at best. How is it any less "immersion breaking" for me to log in my alt Cleric to rez my group?
But it *is* an argument. It's the core of pretty much any disagreement between the two fundamentally defined groups of people who play these games - adventurers and players. Immersion is everything to the former, merely nice trappings for the latter, and both sides hold a somewhat different view of its meaning. At one extreme EQ corpse runs and nose-in-a-book meditation were devised for the adventurers, WoW armor ratings and dungeon finders for the players at the other.
Whether one side chooses to recognize immersion as a "thing" or not, the fact remains that the other side will likely not play the game without it.
I think we've reached some fundamental disagreements on what some of us think Pantheon should or should not do as a group based game.
Since we’re on the subject of facts, here are the facts for me in my old EQ experience.
Eighty-Percent of my playtime in EQ back through Vanilla-PoP was done with a group of real life friends that consisted of 10-14 people. We all loved EQ as much as the people on these forums, but our experiences were not the same as everyone else’s. I never felt like the fact that we had a premade group of people lessened the game for us, or anyone else for that matter. In fact, I remember some of the most frustrating times I had playing EQ was when I would login and not have my normal friends available, and I would have to find a group. It was frustrating, not because of the people I was potentially going to group with were not my friends, but because I remember running from zone to zone looking for groups for hours on end hoping to find a group to join, and often times it would never happen. Those are the times I would try and solo, and eventually logout less enthusiastic about the game.
The fact is, for me and my friends, systems that would help us, and anyone we met along the way to band together as part of our crew, were (and are) major benefits to our long term happiness playing a game. Nobody can say we weren’t hardcore old school gamers, because we were playing the same game as a ton of the guys here that don’t want some of these mechanics.
Ultimately, the point I’m trying to make is that it’s not the “EQ Vets” that are the ones that don’t want these new ideas, because if you look there are a ton of us that are EQ vets, and we DO want to at least entertain these new mechanics. I don’t fault the people for not wanting to have these mechanics added to the game, and I absolutely understand why you feel like they can potentially harm the game, but that perceived harm is subjective.
To many of us these systems can be implemented into a game that still feels like old EQ, and it does not turn it into a theme-park handholding game that will be anti-social. At the end of the day, some people want the most hardcore tenets only to make it, and then there are a bunch of us that don’t mind some of the stuff that can potential help our groups stay together whilst trying to live our busy adult lives.
We don’t all have to agree on this, and I’m a broken record at this point, but I’ll say it again: Server types solve this divide.
I wouldnt be opposed to this system being implemented the way Brad describes it, however, I would prefer that instead of getting you to the dungeon that your whole party is already inside, that the closest it would get you is maybe nearest capital city, or at most, the closest village ( smaller settlement ). But hey, even if it lets you bring your alt directly into the group in the same spot you logged out your main, im not going to quit Pantheon over it =)
On mentoring, I think Mentoring is ok, I think the reason why mentoring worries me is it means that we can have OP groups because of high lvls being able to add too much power to a group through their overly powerful armour and weapons and skill sets and this does tend to effect other peoples enjoyment whether they are in the group or out of the group as a OP group will be quite boring to play within but also will overly dominate a dungeon and all its fruits.
However I think mentoring is ok in the game but it needs heavy restrictions and it needs to ensure that for example a tank with all his awesomeness and ridiculous AC / HP's at his standard level is brought back to an average stats / damage / mitigation position once mentored. I dont think his fancy armour / weapons should equate for anything but an average that calculation based on the mentored level should decide his HP's/ AC/ Spell Damage etc, it is very important that mentors are not OP at all and if anything they should be on the weaker side comparitively to a genuine player at the same level with moderate gear. This will make getting (for example) a real lvl 30 tank a preference but using a lvl 40 tank mentored down to lvl 30 tank a less desirable resort but still an option.
Regarding Caravaning, If the caravan system can be used to level your alts or a range of characters who are not logged on and all are in basically the same place at once are we not kind of just creating a game where you can swap out your classes to be whatever you want whenever you want just witha different name and race? I thought Rallyd had some good suggestions on how to regulate the caravan and quite a few seemed to agree with these concepts including me. I am not sure if the concept someone mentioend of players in the caravans gainging xp regardless is true but it doesnt sit well with me at all.
@Katalyzt
I am just guessing here maybe people who primarily play with close friends only also find it harder to get groups outside of these friends in a MMO because not many people know you from the general public, being known in the general population is not the be all and end all to finding groups but it does help. Of course wanting to play exclusively with close friends makes total sense and is great as thats how you want to play, but also regarding this point I would have thought, if your friends are not on they are well not on, so... to try and help with the issue of not being able to get a group for hours on end, creating a system which ecourages people to reach out more outside of their close friends is better than creating a system that encourages people to wait for their friends to log. I think it is hard to encourage this behaviour, but making ultra convenient features non existant or extremely watered down means you are more likely to spend a bit more time with people outside your immediate friends and potentially forming other relationships and helping you find a group in the 20% of the time that your friends are just not online.
GeekVerve said:But it *is* an argument. It's the core of pretty much any disagreement between the two fundamentally defined groups of people who play these games - adventurers and players. Immersion is everything to the former, merely nice trappings for the latter, and both sides hold a somewhat different view of its meaning. At one extreme EQ corpse runs and nose-in-a-book meditation were devised for the adventurers, WoW armor ratings and dungeon finders for the players at the other.
Whether one side chooses to recognize immersion as a "thing" or not, the fact remains that the other side will likely not play the game without it.
It's an argument in the same way that interjecting the phrase "popsicle sticks" into the conversation is an argument.
The fact is that the term "immersion" has radically different definitions to people. When I see the term immersion, my thought is suspension of belief and/or the ability to "forget" that you're playing a game. Similar to when you read a good book, and you have no idea how three hours suddenly disappeared because of how engaging the story was.
The problem fundamentally, though, is that everyone's ability to be immersed in a game varies wildly. The fact that there is a user interface at all could be considered "immersion breaking", but it's a practical measure that is basically a requirement for MMO gameplay. We're not playing virtual reality games with tactile feedback, it is honestly very primitive and sometimes those unimmersive elements are required to convey specific information within the MMO medium.
Even using out of game VOIP clients doesn't take me out of the game. Running ShowEQ/MQ2 alongside my EQ sessions doesn't take me out of the game. I've literally never played a game that didn't immerse me to some extent.
My point is simple. We can all throw the word immersion around and talk about facts, but at the end of the day, no game is going to be perfectly immersive to any particular individual. We could look at EQ in 1999 through rose-tinted glasses and say that it was the perfectly immersive game. It was immersive, but I could only reply "so why does that red HP bar on your screen not take you out of the game"? It's almost like the term "immersion" is being thrown around in lieu of an actual specfic argument.
flec said:
The features of a guild also allow "players to become self-sufficient and reliant on previous affiliations", but it is my opinion that THAT feature increases the number of social interactions and deepens the community aspect of games. To me, features that facilitate grouping with friends help to strengthen bonds, not weaken them. That said, I am not trying to push that opinion off as a fact.If implemented well a carravan system could provide similar benefits. Similarly, a well implemented mentoring system could make it easier to bring new people into the game, thus provinding a broader community and more interactions.
That's true, but joining a good guild is also a social challenge. More importantly, guilds in EQ were still subject to most of the social challenges that any unaffiliated player was subject to. Just because you were in a guild, it did not trivialize the process of finding and creating groups. Despite being in several huge guilds in EQ over the years, more often than not, we had to rely on randoms or members of other guilds to form groups.
That would not be the case if mentoring were involved.
Zenya said: I said it before in this thread and I want to do it again, because I don't like the present idea of caravans. To me it's conveyor belt gaming (meaning very little effort and adventuring required). Although this feature facilitates grouping for established groups of friends, at the same time it can end up breaking the player base into smaller isolated entities = diminishing the social aspect of the game. Worst case scenario: it makes the game become a "LAN type" game of "soloing groups" instead of an MMO. We do play games for the adventure, effort/reward and exciting sense of danger, and not only in dungeons, but also getting there, don't we? To meet different kinds of people as well as old friends? I do remember PUGs being bad at times in different games, but most of the time they weren't. I befriended new, cool people all through my levels in older games. I really don't want to lose that.
I agree with your sentiment Zenya
I believe the travel and exploration that causes things to happen to your group should be a large part of the game. Natural and Economic "Choke Points" cause groups to have to interact with each other; Friction, Cooperation, Anger, or any range of things can happen. Throw a Giant roaming undead Knight or a werewolf in the zone and other things can come into play. A shared hardship in the wilds can really make for a great experience.
After all we want an MMO that is an experience and not just a hell bent for leather rushfest to the next dungeon. Easy travel causes people who do not realize what the real magic of the game is to miss out. We in turn miss out on any opportunity to meet, learn, about and know each other. The talk of Caravans feels like the rush from dungeon to dungeon then group up and burn it down as fast as possible type of game play. I understand your anxiety after waiting so long for an actual MMO to come back. I am sure they have thought it out as to the effect it will have on the second M of an MMORPG.
I would prefer that caravans be implemented by a guild only for larger raid groups, using a little modern technology to ease the pain is good. You could only form a Carvan if you had 3 or more groups in a raid, It makes sense to have a caravan for a raid, A person could have one alt added to the caravan also. The caravan would go poof after the raid is over or after 10 hours. The local sovereign that approved your guild would allow 2 caravans a week.
Maybe a diplomat in the guild could convince the local sovereign to allow the resources for an additional caravan each week lets say.
Just kicking around some ideas for fun. I hope the trip is more memorable than the destination.
Skycaster Crimsonhands
Skycaster said:Zenya said: I said it before in this thread and I want to do it again, because I don't like the present idea of caravans. To me it's conveyor belt gaming (meaning very little effort and adventuring required). Although this feature facilitates grouping for established groups of friends, at the same time it can end up breaking the player base into smaller isolated entities = diminishing the social aspect of the game. Worst case scenario: it makes the game become a "LAN type" game of "soloing groups" instead of an MMO. We do play games for the adventure, effort/reward and exciting sense of danger, and not only in dungeons, but also getting there, don't we? To meet different kinds of people as well as old friends? I do remember PUGs being bad at times in different games, but most of the time they weren't. I befriended new, cool people all through my levels in older games. I really don't want to lose that.I agree with your sentiment Zenya
I believe the travel and exploration that causes things to happen to your group should be a large part of the game. Natural and Economic "Choke Points" cause groups to have to interact with each other; Friction, Cooperation, Anger, or any range of things can happen. Throw a Giant roaming undead Knight or a werewolf in the zone and other things can come into play. A shared hardship in the wilds can really make for a great experience.
After all we want an MMO that is an experience and not just a hell bent for leather rushfest to the next dungeon. Easy travel causes people who do not realize what the real magic of the game is to miss out. We in turn miss out on any opportunity to meet, learn, about and know each other. The talk of Caravans feels like the rush from dungeon to dungeon then group up and burn it down as fast as possible type of game play. I understand your anxiety after waiting so long for an actual MMO to come back. I am sure they have thought it out as to the effect it will have on the second M of an MMORPG.
I would prefer that caravans be implemented by a guild only for larger raid groups, using a little modern technology to ease the pain is good. You could only form a Carvan if you had 3 or more groups in a raid, It makes sense to have a caravan for a raid, A person could have one alt added to the caravan also. The caravan would go poof after the raid is over or after 10 hours. The local sovereign that approved your guild would allow 2 caravans a week.
Maybe a diplomat in the guild could convince the local sovereign to allow the resources for an additional caravan each week lets say.
Just kicking around some ideas for fun. I hope the trip is more memorable than the destination.
Skycaster Crimsonhands
Thank you! I think you bring good points to the table about guilds and raids in conjunction to caravans.Something well worth pondering.
I understand exactly what you are saying Zenya. It makes perfect sense, even to those that oppose it (because they oppose themselves). You can't be for a meaningful system of travel in a game (one that involves time and risk) and be for a caravan system that allows players to circumvent the actual journey itself and allows players to accumulate experience without personally facing the dangers involved.